The Osceola times., 1887-08-27

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sive, eye-hurting checks, and so tight
that his knee cap had almost worked
through already. They clung to his
legs with desperation, and they had been
pulled down with great pains on the
legs of his boots until they looked as
though they were fitted on gas-pipes.
Only Sl7 for the lot
But the granger sailed along the
street gorgeous spectacle. When last
seen he was negotiating with "foney'
dealer for brass watch chain and a
blue-glass scarf pin.
Those clothes will last him Just a
month. The first time he goes to climb
fence his pantaloons will collapse. If
he stretches his arms his vest will
burst He'll never be able to get that
coat on after it gets wet. though it was
certainly the roomiest coat in existence
when he bought it. He didn't want
those clothes any more than he would
a swallow-tail coat to do his plowing
in. but he bought them. The runner
made him purchaser whether or no.
On Franklin avenue the runners have
perpetual picnic. They don'twheedle
their victims there. There isn't any
spider-and-hy air about their opera
tions. They're more like the lion and
the lamb plan. The mark" is seized
bodily and dragged in. He is stripped
of his "duds" before he is sure that he
isn't in the hands of detectives being
searched for stolen property. He's got
a coat and vest on before he knows it,
and he's standing up before the mirror
and being twirled around until he is
dizzy. They gather yard of loose
folds behind and pull them out, and
then show him how it fits in front.
"Yoost like de papa on de vail"
Then he is turned around with his
back to the mirror and told to behold
himself-something he can't do for the
world. The runner and the proprieto\
declare ecstatically that it is the moa
remarkable fit ever seen-"Vonderfool,
vonderfool, Jakeyr
Elegant" declares Jakey, the run
ner.
"A goat yust like the mayor got here
last week. and dot Cleveland vest-and
so sheep! so sheep. OF Eckenstn
knowdt | sell dot vest for tree tollar to
my own brudder, he neffer speak to me
again, so hellup me krashus.'
How much for this?" the wearer
asks.
"Tweluf tollar! Sheep! Dirt sheep"
That's too much even for the victim.
With wocbegone expression the pro-
prietor declares that he can't let il 60
for less than eleven dollars and half,
and finally the victim demurring still
further, the proprietor cuts it down to
eleven dollars to save the trouble of
taking it of. though he knows he's
going to be bankrupt tomorrow if the
trade finds out he's cutting rates.
So the clothes are sold, the purchaser
paying two hundred per cent. more
than they are worth.
The runners do not always coniine
themselves to roping in men, for they
occasionally catch woman with two
or three boys, and they drag her in and
fit the children out before she is aware
of where she has been or what she has
been doing
The runner. or rather stander. is, as
a general thing, "A slugger, because his
persistency arouses the wrath of m my
pedestrians and he has got to be able to
protect himself. He has also to be a
fighter. because when he gets his pay
he gets drunk, and when he gets drunk
his first duty is to go around to the
most hateful of the opposition and en-
deavor to slug the runner of the es-
tablshment. These friendly jousts
between the runners keep the police
busy and help TO swell the justices
fees. The trial by battle thus to de-
termine the respective merits of their
various houses is the chivalric part of
the business. Occasionally two rivals
will select the same mark. and
tackle him and pull and haul and jab-
Der at him until he feels that he is in
the hands of the Philistines surely, and
takes refuge in flight, or else quietly
sneaks away when his tormentors come
to blows over him.
The business of the runner is to get
D, ople into the store and sell them
goods whether they wish to buy or not,
and he is wonderfully successful in
selling to people who don't want to
buy. Some the runners wheedle
into purchasing and others
they bulldoze into it and
the means necessary TO be adopted in
regard to different men being decided
upon from the circumstances. Their
prices are very elastic, and if man
once gets an article on he'll never get
it off if he has any thing like money on
his person. AT the lowest figure there
is n return for the house which is al
most without the domain of profit and
in the realm of larceny. They place
the figures as high as they think the
"mark" will stand, and then they come
down very slowly until he is led to be-
lieve that he is scutting off considerable.
In this way the goods are nearly al
ways sold very near the topmost figure.
In the good old times the steerers used
TO draw a percentage upon the money
squeezed cut of those they run in, but
the business seems to have fallen Oh
since the days of the big clothing stores